Arena for Learning
Since 2008, more than half the world’s population live in cities.
This requires us as architects to re-access our work and its impact on the earth.
Rather than thinking of buildings as isolated objects, we think about building as New Geography, making an infrastructure for Life:
With globalisation, sameness obliterates uniqueness.
Each place on earth has unique co-ordinates, history, traditions and culture.
In Lima, Peru, UTEC needed a new University.
They held an international architectural competition.
We wondered what the University’s aspirations might be.
We studied the list of spaces they needed.
We wondered about their culture, what the people are like.
We thought about making something unique to this place.
Lima is a city build on a desert, 12 degrees south of the Equator.
A cold current from Antarctica keeps the climate pleasantly temperate.
There are 40 m high cliffs onto the Pacific Ocean that define the edge of the city.
The site is close by, enjoying on-shore breezes.
We imagined a man-made ‘cliff’, positioning its structure along the busy motorway, to be visible to passing traffic and register in the public mind. The auditorium is placed at the base of the ‘cliff’ face, marking the boundary with the motorway. We imagined a University as an Arena for Learning.
Vertical Campus
While the north face of the campus acts as ‘cliff’ or ‘shoulder’ to the fast-moving city,
We terraced the lecture rooms, laboratories and teaching spaces, so that their roofs became cascading gardens, reminiscent of the cultivated terraces of Machu Picchu. Landscape is woven into the building.
Educationally, the strategy connects ground and sky. Larger volumes are placed nearest the ground, teaching spaces and administration are positioned above.
Research Laboratories are on display, like exhibition spaces, positioned to be involved in the everyday life of the campus, central to the ethos of education. Students interact and observe various educational options.
Sustainability is both Cultural and Environmental.
All the circulation is external
It forms a new circulation landscape. - open to the air, so that precious resources are saved.
Only rooms that need environmental control are air-conditioned.
Solar Control
Upper levels are corbelled to protect against the nearly vertical sun.
The Structure
This insitu-reinforced concrete building is organized by a 20m main-structure and 10m intermediate structural grid. Ribbed beams form soffits.
In order to conform to local building codes, the upper building is placed on seismic isolators. Car-parking and service lower floors are embedded into the earth.
The Plan
Due to the curved nature of the 360 m long site, each 20m structural rhythm adjusts itself to the outer rim. There is no singular long vista. Instead, a series of intriguing spaces form a type of spatial ‘chain’, drawing you from one space to the next.
The Free Section
The seismic leaning of the section and the corbelled upper levels to protect against the Equatorial sun form a type of ‘cathedral’ space.
The multiple levels, climate and social interaction make you feel that you are inside a form of articulated mountain.
